Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Macbook or iMac

T

Techguy172

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Feb 2, 2007
1,782
0
Ontario Canada
Ok, fellas I'm trying to decide between the iMac or the Macbook I'm torn between the two.

Here's what i'l be using the machines for: Adobe (photoshop, illustrator,indesign etc.) e-mail, itunes, coding, wordprosscessing, iLife.

Now I really like the iMac's sleek design but the macbook is portable convienent but the iMac also packs a big punch (ie. GPU). Both of theese computers would be upgraded to 4gbs of ram by me.

I'm looking at the middle 2.2ghz white Macbook and the 2.4ghz 24" iMac. I will be purchasing in about 1-2 month's.

Thanks in advance.
 
the obvious question is.....do you really need your computer to be portable??? If so, then it's the Macbook for you. And if not, then go for the bigger screen (which you'll like with the adobe products) of the iMac
 
Macky-Mac said:
the obvious question is.....do you really need your computer to be portable??? If so, then it's the Macbook for you. And if not, then go for the bigger screen (which you'll like with the adobe products) of the iMac
Click to expand...


If i were to get the Macbook would I loose a lot of performace or would it be hard to tell the diffrence, and how bad is integrated graphics.
 
mkrishnan said:
For Adobe, it's a negligible difference. For iLife, I think it may be a bigger difference. It's most notable in games and in video/image software that uses coreservices (Aperture, Pixelmator, etc).
Click to expand...

Ok, but what i don't get is apple loves all this eye candy but they don't put in the chips that can run it well. I want to keep this computer for atleast 3 years and if the hardware isn't great today then what will it be like in the future?
 
Techguy172 said:
Ok, but what i don't get is apple loves all this eye candy but they don't put in the chips that can run it well. I want to keep this computer for atleast 3 years and if the hardware isn't great today then what will it be like in the future?
Click to expand...

Now isn't that being a bit neurotic? Leopard and iLife run fine on a Macbook. Some things will be notably better on an iMac. The difference in certain aspects of iLife is probably going to be noticeable, but it will be far from unusable. But no one is telling you to buy a Macbook to run, say, Aperture.

Like anyone else's notebooks, Apple's notebooks are subject to having a tighter margin of future protection than desktop by virtue of the form factor's engineering limitations. But before I sold my iBook last week, I found it quite usable for a wide variety of things, and it will be four years old in December.
 
mkrishnan said:
Now isn't that being a bit neurotic? Leopard and iLife run fine on a Macbook. Some things will be notably better on an iMac. The difference in certain aspects of iLife is probably going to be noticeable, but it will be far from unusable. But no one is telling you to buy a Macbook to run, say, Aperture.

Like anyone else's notebooks, Apple's notebooks are subject to having a tighter margin of future protection than desktop by virtue of the form factor's engineering limitations. But before I sold my iBook last week, I found it quite usable for a wide variety of things, and it will be four years old in December.
Click to expand...


Oh, I'm sorry i think i misunderstood you the first time i thought you meant that it would be jittery and hard to use. If it's minimal difference then I don't care so much.
 
I actually have to defer on iLife 08, as I've never used it -- but I'm suspecting iMovie is the one where you'll see a difference. My understanding is that generally, gamers aside, people don't end up complaining about the integrated graphics all that much. That is, people who actually own one, as opposed to people who are just on the forumz complaining. And you do have the benefit that SR just brought the Macbook a new integrated GPU.
 
mkrishnan said:
I actually have to defer on iLife 08, as I've never used it -- but I'm suspecting iMovie is the one where you'll see a difference. My understanding is that generally, gamers aside, people don't end up complaining about the integrated graphics all that much. That is, people who actually own one, as opposed to people who are just on the forumz complaining. And you do have the benefit that SR just brought the Macbook a new integrated GPU.
Click to expand...


I was just doing a little research on the gma x3100 and it appears to make quite the difference by taking load of the CPU, The core clock seems to have doubled. and it supports direct X 10 meaning the card has been improved by quite a bit, although I do realize mac uses open GL.
 
If money is an issue, then buy a 20" and a low end MacBook.... :)

Best of both worlds..

But only buy a laptop if you want portability..Otherwise, iMac FTW!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back